Peak Oil (27 page)

Alexa heard the beat of tiny feet pounding down the wooden stairway. Mary-Lou pulled a chair from behind the counter and climbed on top.

“Good day. My name is Mary-Lou, how may I be of assistance?” she reeled off.

Alexa almost cried. “Missy at Bingo night again?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Mary-Lou leaned on the counter and shook her head. “Nah, she’s sleeping.”

“Do you mind if we talk for a while?” Alexa asked.

Mary-Lou looked down at her feet and popped her thumb in her mouth. “Grandma Pauline says we’re not supposed to be flapping our jaws to paying guests. She says loose lips sink ships.”

Mary-Lou glanced at Alexa, and then her face brightened. “But I’ll show you my den,” she said, bouncing up and down. She stuck her hand out to Alexa.

Alexa smiled and took it. She followed the young girl as she was unceremoniously dragged to the stairs. Then Mary-Lou stopped and looked back. “But that man needs to stay here. Only girls allowed.”

Alexa winked at Rosh and followed Mary-Lou up the stairs. She pulled Alexa onto the bed, yanked the sheet off of the mattress on the top bed, and tucked it into the lower bunk, forming an enclosing wall around them. She crawled in beside Alexa. “This is Fort McHenry, like in Grandma Pauline’s picture book.”
 

Alexa smiled, admiring the interior of her makeshift fort. “Nice.”

Mary-Lou nodded. “It’s invisible,” she said, beaming at Alexa. “Grandma Pauline says I’ll always be safe here.”

Alexa laughed, gave Mary-Lou a hug, and planted a kiss on her forehead.
 

Mary-Lou giggled. “Where is Uncle Neil?”

“He’s resting,” Alexa said with a strained voice, her throat constricting as she spoke. She swallowed, trying to blink away the painful memory.
 

“Are these your pictures?” She picked up a drawing. She studied it and sucked in a deep breath. A man with a cowboy hat was kicking a woman lying on the ground. The woman’s hand was covering her head, the other hand in the air, begging for mercy.
 

“What the—?” She flipped to the next one and saw a drawing of Mary-Lou as a toddler—an obvious self-portrait, but her head was wrapped in blood-soaked bandages.

The next one was of Missy sitting in a chair, her hands covering her face. Andy Fitch was leaning over her threateningly, a finger jabbing in her face.

Next was the inn being constructed. Sweaty men were hoisting ceiling beams and rafters. There were half a dozen pictures of the inn at various stages of completion.

She flipped to the next page and her eyes widened in shock. Her hand started shaking as she brought the picture closer to her eyes. A man wearing a cowboy hat was shouting at Mary-Lou, a finger jammed in her face. The man was Bis Latorre.

“Who is this?” she asked Mary-Lou, pointing to the picture.

Mary-Lou put her thumb in her mouth. “That’s my daddy,” she mumbled and looked up at Alexa. “Grandma Pauline says he’s a bad man; he killed Momma. She says it’s best to stay away from him.” She pointed to the window. “He’s always lookin’ at me with a bad smile.”

“Outside?” Alexa asked.

Mary-Lou nodded.
 

Alexa jumped off the bed and dashed to the window. A man in dark clothes stood looking up at the window. He tipped an invisible hat at Alexa and waved. And then a loud explosion blasted through the inn. Flickering shadows were cast over his face, and a warm glow emanated from the kitchen window.
 

Alexa spun around and ran to Mary-Lou as she realized that the building was on fire.

Alexa ran toward the door and peered out. Two shots barked and splintered chunks of wood from the doorframe. She ducked back inside, bolted to the window, and pushed it open. Mary-Lou was watching her frantic movements with her thumb stuck in her mouth.
 

Another explosion shook the building as Alexa grabbed Mary-Lou’s hand and made her stand beside the bed. She ripped the sheet from the bed and pulled the lid off the toilet tank. She dunked the sheets in the tank and shouted over her shoulder, “Come on, Mary-Lou. I’m going to show you how to climb out the window like a monkey.”

The girl’s eyes grew wide. “That’s dangerous. Grandma Pauline told me never to climb out of the window.” Mary-Lou shook her little finger. “She said she would beat the black off me.”

Alexa pulled the sheet from the tank, spilling water on the floor. “It’s okay when I am here,” she said and started winding the sheet tight, forming three loops in a trefoil.
 

She looked around and picked a cup up from a side table. “Come, I need to make us wet so we don’t get warm.” Mary-Lou stood making a fuss as Alexa sloshed water over them. She instructed Mary-Lou to climb into the two smaller loops and pulled the loops all the way up to the girl’s bottom.

“Okay, Mary-Lou, grab my neck and hold on tight. Don’t look down.” She hoisted Mary-Lou onto her back and slipped the larger loop over her neck. She was light as a feather.
 

“Wait!” Mary-Lou shouted. “My pictures.”

Alexa ran to the bed and bundled the drawings into the front of her sweater. She leaned out of the window, peered down, and then climbed out of the window and swung her legs over the sill. She pulled her entire body out of the window and stood precariously on the sill, the young girl gripping tightly around her neck.
 

“Okay, hold on tight, here we go,” Alexa said. She lunged and caught a gutter to the side of the building, suppressing the urge to scream as the pain shot through her shoulder and neck. This was not helping the healing process. She shifted her hands over each other, following the gutter around the side of the building.
 

Alexa inched her feet downward and looked over her shoulder, measuring the six foot drop to the roof of the balcony below. She let go and dropped lightly onto the roof. She looked up as she wiped the cold beads of perspiration from her brow with the back of her hand. Flames started licking out of Mary-Lou’s window.

Alexa peered down from the second story and saw a man run toward her, looking up. It was Colonel Max Porter.

“Captain, are you okay up there?” he shouted.

“I’m fine,” Alexa shouted and pointed to the back of the building. “An armed assailant forced me this way. Go check if Major Rosh is okay.”

He nodded, ran to the back of the building, and disappeared around the corner.

Alexa crouched and swung over the gutter of the roof. She felt with her feet and found a secure footing on the balcony railing below her. She shuffled to her left and then grabbed onto a corner post of the balcony. She jumped on, gripping with her arms and her thighs, and slid down. They landed on the ground, and Alexa minimized the impact by bending her legs and landing on all fours.
 

She lifted Mary-Lou from her back and put her down on the ground. The girl clapped her hands and giggled. “That was fun. Let’s go again!”

Alexa smiled and patted her head. “Maybe tomorrow.” Her shoulder was throbbing, and she uncapped the Ketamine and tossed two more tablets in her mouth.

She grabbed the girl’s hand and jogged to reception. Colonel Porter stood crouched over Major Rosh’s body, his finger on the man’s neck. He glanced up as Alexa approached and shook his head.
 

“Stay here, Mary-Lou.”
 

Alexa ran up to Porter. “Shot in the back of the head,” Porter said as she knelt beside him.

“Any sign of her grandmother?” Alexa asked, jerking her head to the little girl. Porter shook his head again.

“Okay, get her to safety.” She scanned the burning building. “I need to find Missy.”

She peered into the reception area; the first floor was already on fire. “Shit,” she mumbled. Then she shrugged and leaped inside, lunging up the stairs three at a time. She covered her face with an arm and ran into the passageway on the second floor. She saw Missy, crouching at the far end of the passage, smoke billowing over her. Alexa bolted forward. “Are you all right?” she asked, crouching next to Missy, hugging her shoulder protectively.

Missy nodded, soot-faced, her eyes red and teary. “I cannot breathe,” she said with a hoarse voice, clutching her throat as she gagged.

Alexa grabbed her hand and pulled her forward, “Okay, follow me.”
 

Missy resisted, pulling back like a stubborn mule. “No, I need to get Mary-Lou.”

“She’s safe.” Alexa squeezed her hand.

A puffy hand fluttered to her heart. “Oh, thank God.”
 

Alexa pulled Missy down the smoky passageway and then stopped to look back. The stairs were ablaze, thin tongues of flames seeping into the cracks between the woodwork. It wasn’t going to hold. Alexa took a deep breath and glanced back at Missy. “We’ll have to do this; it’s our only way out.”
 

Missy pursed her lips, uncertain, her hand still clutching at her throat.
 

“Let’s go!” Alexa shouted and yanked the woman’s arm, pulling her down the staircase.

They pounded down the stairs, Alexa wincing as the larger woman’s weight caused the stairs to creak and shudder beneath them. They got halfway down before it gave in, Alexa holding her arms above her head as the structure crashed to the ground, burning embers falling on top of them. Alexa crawled out of the pile of smoldering wood as Porter pulled Missy’s unconscious body free. Together they dragged her onto the grass. Her undergarment was on fire, and Alexa smelled the sickening stench of burning human flesh.
 

She jogged to the tap and grabbed the hosepipe, opened it, and extinguished the flames on Missy’s legs and dress.
 

Mary-Lou sauntered up, eyeing her grandmother’s unconscious body suspiciously. “Is grandma okay?” she asked, sucking her thumb. “She was burning.”

Alexa cast Porter a wide-eyed glance and he shrugged. She nodded and smiled at Mary-Lou as she took the girl in her arms. “She’s going to be just fine.”

Alexa peered over her shoulder as a fire truck came wailing up to the entrance of the inn, and then she jumped up and waved one of the officers over. “We need to get her to the clinic,” she shouted.

The man nodded as he jogged forward, talking into his two-way radio and directing the other men around him.
 

Two minutes later, an ambulance arrived.
Thank goodness it’s a small town
, Alexa thought. The paramedics loaded Missy onto a gurney. Alexa followed them to the ambulance, Missy clutching her hand as they went. The older woman opened her eyes and smiled weakly.
 

“Thank you, miss. Thank you so much,” she said and gave Alexa’s hand a squeeze. “God sent me an angel tonight.”

Alexa watched as the paramedics slammed the ambulance doors shut behind them and the vehicle lurched away, sirens blaring noisily.

“I’m no angel, Missy,” she muttered as she turned around and headed back to the blazing building. “Not by a long stretch.”

Alexa shivered as a balmy breeze bit into her feverish body. An orange tinge in the starless morning sky hinted at the imminence of dawn. Bruce had arrived shortly after the fire, and he was now standing, leaning against a tree, studying her pensively. He hadn’t offered any advice or encouragement. He just stood there, doing nothing.

She was kept busy, directing the troops and helping the firemen extinguish the last of the smoking embers. She made sure Voelkner accompanied Missy to Saint Josephine’s and then checked in every half an hour to find out if she was doing okay. And Bruce had just leaned against the tree, his hands in his pockets, studying her.

When she finally plopped down on the lawn, spent, he walked to her and stuck out his hand. “You done?”
 

She nodded and he helped her up.
 

“Let’s talk,” he said. She looked back over her shoulder as he led her away from the chaotic scene and the strobing lights and the smoke. Away from all the action where she was dearly needed.
 

“But wait, I need to—” she protested.

He held her hand firmly. “Let’s talk.”

He led her to a private bench at the far end of the garden. He sat down and pulled her down beside him, and then he pulled her head to his chest. She remonstrated; she didn’t want to be physically close to anyone at all. He calmed her down and held her tight.
 

“Hush, Alexa,” he said and wrapped his arms around her, rocking her gently back and forth, like he used to do when she was a kid. Before the army, before she had become a killer. He hummed a tune, a song she remembered, something about a guy drinking beers for breakfast and dessert. And the song transported her back to the days when she was safe at home with Bruce and her mom, where she was at peace with the world and with herself.
 

Her emotions came bubbling out, and she talked about her bitter disappointment at losing Neil, and the hatred she felt toward Fitch, and how she was going to torture and kill him. How she wished this was all a bad dream and that Neil would come back, simply reappear. How much she loved him, and how everything felt like a nightmare, and how she wished she could snap her fingers and wake up.